网帖翻译

Did you see the “finance guy” at Glastonbury? No, he wasn’t one of the DJs. He was instead an imaginary, idealised figure who loomed large over the festival – on flags that bore the words “LOOKING FOR A MAN IN FINANCE”, as well as via the phones of numerous attendees, who blasted out clips of a viral musical number celebrating him and his kind.

你在格拉斯顿伯里音乐节上有没有看到那个“金融男”？他不是DJ，而是一个理想化的虚构人物。他出现在许多旗帜上，上面写着“寻找金融男”，还有不少参与者的手机上播放着庆祝他的洗脑式音乐片段。

If none of this is ringing a bell, allow us to introduce you to a TikTok video created by performer Megan Boni, which carries the refrain: “I’m looking for a man in finance / Trust fund, six five, blue eyes.” Over the past couple of months, the 19-second clip has racked up more than 50 million views and thousands of comments. And across the internet, people tapping into the trend have declared that they too would like a partner who fits this bill. But where is this man? And why is everyone desperately looking for him? And even though it’s all fairly tongue in cheek, what does his sheer omnipotence say about the sorry state of modern dating?

如果你对这些没有印象，那么让我们为你介绍一下由表演者梅根·博尼创作的一段TikTok视频，其中的副歌是：“我在寻找一个金融男 / 信托基金，身高六尺五，蓝眼睛。”在过去的几个月里，这段19秒的视频已经收获了超过5000万次观看和成千上万的评论。在互联网上，许多人跟风参与这个潮流，并宣称他们也想要一个符合这些条件的伴侣。但是，这个男人在哪里？为什么大家都在拼命寻找他？尽管这只是开玩笑，但他无处不在的现象反映了现代约会的糟糕现状吗？

Much has been made of the fact that the likelihood of finding a man with such specificities is not particularly high. According to calculations made by Rae Hodge, a Los Angeles-based corporate strategy director, there are just two men in the US who fit this descxtion. That’s after you’ve considered the number of men who work in finance (1.7 million men in the US), have a trust fund (1.2 per cent of Americans), are 6ft 5in (0.1 per cent of men in the US), have blue eyes (27 per cent of men in the US), and of whether they’re single or not.

很多人都指出，要找到一个符合如此具体条件的男人几率并不高。根据洛杉矶企业战略总监雷·霍奇的计算，美国只有两个男人符合这个描述。这是基于以下因素得出的结论：在美国从事金融行业的男性数量（170万），拥有信托基金的比例（1.2%的美国人），身高六尺五的比例（0.1%的美国男性），有蓝眼睛的比例（27%的美国男性），以及他们是否单身。

But that isn’t stopping people from pining, and openly shifting their priorities when it comes to looking for love. Because romance is fun and all, but it’s not going to pay your water bill. Unlike other viral memes, the “finance guy” isn’t just another silly social media trend; it’s one that reflects a deeper seismic shift within a society plagued by economic collapse, political uncertainty, and an ongoing cost of living crisis. With all this in mind, it’s no wonder single people are deciding to forgo love in favour of finances. Or at least prioritise wealth above other, more meaningful, factors.

但这并没有阻止人们渴望找到这样的人，并在寻找爱情时公开改变自己的优先事项。因为浪漫固然有趣，但它不会帮你支付水费。与其他病毒式传播的网络迷因不同，“金融男”不仅仅是另一个沙雕的社交媒体趋势；它反映了一个经济崩溃、政治不确定性和持续的生活成本上涨困扰的社会中更深层次的颠覆性转变。在这种背景下，单身人士决定放弃爱情而追求财务也就不足为奇了。或者至少将财富优先于其他更有意义的因素。

Just a few years ago, it would’ve been considered gauche and tacky to even mention money when talking about your dating life. Now, it’s completely normal. Among my single friends, many are shameless about wanting to settle down with a wealthy partner. “Ideally, you want someone from generational wealth so you know that money isn’t going anywhere,” one told me over dinner recently. Others are quick to use first dates as a chance to ask questions about housing and career trajectories to get a sense of someone’s earnings – and swiftly abandon ship if someone doesn’t meet their expectations.

就在几年前，谈论约会生活时提到钱还会被认为是粗俗和俗气的行为。而现在，这完全变得正常。在我单身的朋友中，许多人毫不掩饰地希望能和一个富有的伴侣安定下来。最近，一位朋友在晚餐时告诉我：“理想情况下，你希望对方来自富贵世家，这样钱就用之不尽。”其他人则在第一次约会时迅速抓住机会，询问有关住房和职业前景的问题，以了解对方的收入情况——如果对方不符合他们的期望，他们就会迅速离开。

Personally, I still find the subject icky, and resent the idea of feeling financially dependent on a partner. But I can understand why, given the current climate, many of us are “looking for a man in finance”, so to speak. The modern world isn’t built for single people, least of all single women. Whether it’s paying taxes or doing your supermarket shop, literally everything is easier when it’s split between two people. I know plenty of couples who’ve sped up the progression of their relationship in order to move in together to save money on rent, sometimes to their detriment.

就我个人而言，我仍然觉得这个话题令人讨厌，并对在经济上依赖伴侣的想法深恶痛绝。但我也能理解为什么在当前的环境下，我们中的许多人都在 "寻找金融业的男人"。现代社会并不是为单身人士打造的，尤其是单身女性。无论是缴税还是在超市购物，如果由两个人分担，一切都会变得简单。我认识很多情侣，他们为了省房租搬到一起住，加快了关系发展的速度，有时这对他们也是不利的。

All things considered, then, is marrying for money really that bad? It’s what people used to do, of course. And even though society has come on leaps and bounds in terms of equality, there are evidently still many hurdles holding women back from being able to achieve the same financial milestones as men. The gender pay gap has not yet been closed – according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), median pay for all employees was 14.3 per cent less for women than for men in April 2023. Meanwhile, a study by the Fawcett Society and Total Jobs from last year found that roughly 250,000 mothers with young children have left their jobs over struggles with balancing work and childcare. And on top of this, a recent report compiled by the Women’s Budget Group found that women need more than 12 times their annual salaries to be able to buy a home in England, while men need just over eight times.

综上所述，为钱而结婚真的那么糟糕吗？毕竟，这是人们曾经习以为常的事。尽管在平等方面社会已经取得了巨大的进步，但显然仍有许多障碍阻碍女性达到与男性相同的财务里程碑。性别薪酬差距尚未消除——根据国家统计局（ONS）的数据，2023年4月，所有员工的中位数薪酬女性比男性低14.3%。同时，去年由福西特协会和Total Jobs进行的一项研究发现，约有25万名有幼儿的母亲因难以平衡工作和育儿而离职。此外，女性预算小组编制的最新报告发现，女性需要超过年薪的12倍以上才能在英格兰买房，而男性只需要年薪的8倍多一点。

This brings me back to the finance guy. His popularity is ironic, really, when you consider how deeply uncool working in finance has always been, at least in the sense that it puts you firmly outside the zeitgeist. Revealing yourself to work in the industry was always preceded by some sort of apology, or a self-deprecating explanation. Now it seems that no such preamble is necessary. If you work in finance, you’re currently the hottest property on the dating market. Height and blue eyes are just arbitrary bonuses.

这让我想起了金融男。从某种意义上来说，考虑到金融行业一直以来在文化潮流中并不受欢迎，他的受欢迎程度实际上是具有讽刺意味的。以前，透露自己从事金融工作常常需要先作出某种形式的道歉或自嘲式的解释。现在似乎不再需要这样的前言了。如果你在金融领域工作，你目前就是约会市场上最抢手的对象。身高和蓝眼睛只是额外的随机加分选项而已。

But this is bigger than the finance guy, and speaks to a sea change in how we talk about dating online. In recent months, there has been a surge in viral videos in which women pontificate about the benefits of marrying rich men, and “teaching” their followers how to find one. The most prolific of these women is Texas-based YouTuber Leticia Padua, known online as Shera Seven. She regularly posts videos urging women to marry for money, and advising against becoming “Bob the Builder chicks” – who invest too much energy emotionally supporting male partners and offering to split bills with them. Elsewhere, there’s TikToker Mimi Shou, who built her platform by sharing stories of pursuing finance guys in New York.

但这不仅仅是关于金融男的问题，它反映了我们如何在网上谈论约会方式的巨大变化。近几个月来，出现了大量病毒式视频，女性在其中详细讨论嫁给富有男士的好处，并“教导”她们的追随者如何找到这样的对象。其中最活跃的一位是德克萨斯州的YouTuber莱蒂西娅·帕杜亚（Leticia Padua），在网上被称为Shera Seven。她经常发布视频敦促女性为了金钱而结婚，并建议不要成为“鲍勃建筑工女郎”——他们在情感上为男性伴侣提供过多支持，并主动提出分担账单。另外还有TikToker米米·寿（Mimi Shou），她通过分享在纽约追求金融男士的经历建立了自己的平台。

Then there’s the rising “trad wife” movement. Short for “traditional wives”, the term denotes women reverting to housewife roles akin to the 1950s. They cook and clean while their husbands are out at work and spend days taking care of their children, doing it all with so much Valencia-filtered vim that their videos rack up millions of views around the globe.

还有正在兴起的“传统妻子”运动。这个术语指的是女性回归到类似于1950年代的家庭主妇角色。她们在丈夫外出工作时负责做饭、打扫卫生，并且整天照顾孩子，这些活动都被她们以滤镜加工过的视频形式展示，吸引了全球数百万次观看。

Have we gone back in time? Or have we just reverted to archaic ideals out of sheer desperation? I suspect it’s the latter. And while I’m still too much of a hopeless romantic to get sucked in, I can see the appeal. Because let’s face it, times are tough in 2024. Perhaps for a lot of people, the idea of marrying for money is not old-fashioned at all. Nor is it even uncouth. It’s just necessary. So necessary, in fact, that people are willing to walk around a music festival holding flags in pursuit of a rich man. Whether or not the flags were successful, we’ll never know. But at least all the 6ft 5in men will have been tall enough to spot them.

我们是在倒退回过去吗？还是出于彻底绝望而恢复了过时的理念？我倾向于后者。虽然我仍然是一个不折不扣的浪漫主义者，不会被吸引进去，但我能理解其吸引力所在。因为让我们面对现实吧，在2024年，生活确实很艰难。也许对很多人来说，为了金钱而结婚根本不算老派，甚至也不算粗俗，而是必要的。实际上，这种需求如此迫切，以至于人们愿意在音乐节上挥舞旗帜追求富有的男人。无论这些旗帜是否成功，我们永远不会知道。但至少所有那些身高六尺五的男人肯定足够高大，能够看到这些旗帜。